lord-salad

[lord-salad]

What confused me about the whole "how often do you think about the Roman Empire?" thing is that so many guys were saying they thought about the Roman Empire at least once a week, but only the military side of things. I think about the Roman Empire because of the Late Republic - Early Empire's views of gender roles and sexuality. For instance; the idea that "sleeping with women makes you more manly. More women slept with = more manly" would've been an insane concept to the Romans.

Podcast bro today: Woah bro, a body count higher than 260? That's so sick.

Cicero in the 1st century BCE: You have such little self-control but you only spend that time with women? You're basically a woman too at that point.

(Before anyone says anything, I'm well aware that the Ancient Romans were terrible in many ways, I just think that this difference in Roman vs modern "alpha male" ideology is hilarious).

[lord-salad]

One of my personal headcanons is that Ishtar left Mesopotamia, moved to Greece and rebranded as Aphrodite, and it was entirely because of Gilgamesh.

Ishtar proposes marriage to Gilgamesh (this is how she introduces herself btw) and basically offers to A) double his wealth, B) he gets to live in her palace, and C) he gets the Mesopotamian equivalent of a golden Lamborghini.

Gilgamesh basically starts off with: "You're joking, right? With your reputation? You're a frost without ice, a door that can't keep out the wind, a house that falls on its inhabitants, a [roughly 7 more metaphors like this...]".

He's not done yet though. This diva then hits her with the: "Come, let me tell you the tale of your lovers:" and proceeds to rapid-fire a scathing list of her past lovers, along with how she ruined their lives. He ends the list with the DIABOLICAL line: "Must you love me also and deal with me likewise?"

All this to say, if I were her, this single interaction would be enough to make me leave the country and change my name. She also threatened to hit Mesopotamia with a zombie apocalypse because of this.

[lord-salad]

The ending, Barbie(main) "becoming human", is meant to represent the prophetic Bronze Age vision finally coming true.

finally watched barbie last night. i think it was refreshing to see gerwig's exploration of population exchange in europe during the chalcolithic age. barbies are clearly coded to be early european farmers, living in a comfortable yet stagnant environment of europe at the tail end of the ice age, with a culture revolving around female fertility (notice the second character introduced is a pregnant barbie). the second sequence shows up ken(gosling)'s enterance into the story on beach, mirroring the arrival of western steppe herder cultures as glaciers in europe retreated.

once barbie and ken venture into the "real world" (prohpetic vision of the bronze age), ken adopts advanced technologies like the horse (horse), patriatrchy (worship of a male solar deity), and cars (the wheel, expoundable into the horse-driven chariot). his donning of the fringe jacket and cowboy hat stir within the audience a yearning for westward expansion, from the pontine steppe through the pannonian basin and beyond.

ken transforming barbieland into the kendom mirrors the replacement of early european farmer (vinča, varna cultures etc.) with corded ware and bell beaker cultures, settled iterations of the kens' previously pastoral culture. the only barbie not assimilated into the new cultral zeitgeist is weird barbie (basques), herself a cultural isolate even compared to other barbies pre-invasion.

the final battle scene between the two ken factions places particular focus on archery, hallmark of the mongol civilization, which was the last of the steppe invasions of europe. notice in this situation, gerwig's bravery in correctly having ken (asian) represent the kingdom of hungary (asian), whereas ken (gosling) is of course the ever-lasting scythian spirit emanating from the steppe. some scholars have suggested the light-blue void where the last battle takes place to be a metaphor tengri.

some other stuff happened as well but i didn't really get how that fit into the greater story i guess. what was the deal with the old jewish lady LOL !

[lord-salad]

Broke: Egyptians built Pyramids as tombs to their Pharoahs, the living incarnations of Osiris

Woke: Aliens built the Pyramids as intergalactic communication systems

Bespoke: The Pyramids were built to imprison the FNAF animatronics

[lord-salad]

Honestly, I think about this at least once a week

Do you ever think about how Tolkien’s vision of the greatest evil in the universe was something he referred to as “The Machine” which was his way of talking about accelerated industrialism and mass surveillance and he wrote multiple books where the main villains were a dragon who sits on a huge pile of treasure that he never intends to use but incinerates anyone who comes near it, a man in a giant tower who’s wrecking the environment with his factories, and an evil being who uses what’s essentially a listening device to control the citizens of middle earth. And now Amazon is making a Tolkien show. Do you ever think about that.

[lord-salad]

I'm very optimistic for House of the Dragon. I'm not a ASOIAF lore expert by any means but it has been a hyperfixation for me since I was 11, I can say with confidence these new trailers give me more faith than the High Sparrow gave the Fleabottom peasants.

[lord-salad]

It's wild that organs just exist, and are most commonly associated with church

[lord-salad]

From here on out, I'm describing the relationship between my subconscious and conscious minds as a Wormtongue/Théoden sort of dynamic.

[lord-salad]

Why did the show feel it was necessary to make Lyanna and Rhaegar the worst people imaginable but framed them like they were heroes? Lyanna ran away from her family without saying anything, not even leaving a note.

Rhaegar on the other hand left his wife and children with his insane father to go off and shag some random lass he'd met like 3 times. He then annulled his marriage to Elia, making his children with her bastards and indirectly accusing her of cheating on him.

Lyanna and Rhaegar then decide to go to Dorne (the homeland of Rhaegar's now ex-girlfriend) to get married in secret. Bran, seeing all this decides that "Robert's Rebellion was built on a lie" even though Robert's Rebellion happened because the betrothal of Robert and Lyanna was broken.

To rub salt in the wound, after Elia and her children get brutally murdered, Lyanna decides to name her son the same name as Elia's now dead son.

[lord-salad]

This is officially a William the Conqueror hate account. Don't think I forgot about the Harrying of the North.

To solidify control of the North, William the Conqueror ordered his soldiers to use scorched earth tactics to subjugate the people of York and the neighboring areas. Many of these people had mixed Anglo-Norse heritage due to the history of Viking raids and incursions on the British Isles. The time during which these campaigns took place has since been dubbed 'the Harrying of the North', and many scholars have labelled it a genocide. By the end of the Harrying, 75% of the Northern population had either fled or died. William then deposed the Northern lords and gave the lands and titles to Norman nobles.

[lord-salad]

I understand where people are coming from when they say "the Dwemer zero-summed", and maybe I'm missing something here, but I'm sure that at least 1 Dwemer should have achieved CHIM. Those mfs were so cocky that one of them literally played a prank on Azura, AZURA OF ALL DAEDRA. And you're telling me that none of them were egotistical enough to deny reality? Hard to believe.

[lord-salad]

Also, why do people claim the chance of a mad Targaryen is 50/50 when, in 300 years, they've only had like 10 mad Targaryens, and most of them went mad due to extreme circumstances.

Idk why everyone keeps wanting Daenerys to turn mad, her character's morale (to me at least) is that just because your parents are evil doesn't mean you are. It would be so much more interesting if Jon went mad after he comes back. That doesn't mean Daenerys should have the ideal outcome, just that she shouldn't descend into madness.

[lord-salad]

Idk why everyone keeps wanting Daenerys to turn mad, her character's morale (to me at least) is that just because your parents are evil doesn't mean you are. It would be so much more interesting if Jon went mad after he comes back. That doesn't mean Daenerys should have the ideal outcome, just that she shouldn't descend into madness.